I think making a pretense of civility toward Eric Alterman is like making a pretense of civility to a scorpion.
I come from an Irish working-class background but went to a posh school, and any type of pretension was quickly mocked at home. I've always had a keen eye for pretension.
You've always lived a life of pretense, not a real life-- a simulated existence, not a genuine existence. Everything about you, everything you are, has always been pretense, never genuine, never real.
War does not only kill soldiers and warriors. It also kills rules and moral values. No! Those cannot be killed. War kills the pretense at rules and moral values. It also kills the pretense of being human beings...
Afternoon tea needn’t stand on ceremony. Anything that becomes more important than sweet fellowship, whether lace or linen or the china itself, is pretense. How much more we enjoy life when the pretenses are discarded!
Bach's music confront the player and the audience in a very alone way, and I try at that moment to put away pretensions-in levels of violin playing, pretensions of being a strong man, of being invulnerable- and instead say, 'this is where all of us u...
To copy beauty forfeits all pretense to fame; to copy faults is want of sense.
I have not the slightest pretension to call my verses poetry; I write now and then for no other purpose than to relieve depression or to improve my English.
Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.
Pretense cannot sustain blind power.
They're innocent movies, and they're fun movies and there were no pretensions about 'em.
I don't do interviews under false pretenses.
If there is no hell, a good many preachers are obtaining money under false pretenses.
Demolishing pretensions, especially worthy ones, is a hallmark of the baby boom.
Pretensions to moral superiority are devastatingly destructive.
The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.
I forgive all personal weaknesses except egomania and pretension.
Science makes no pretension to eternal truth or absolute truth.
Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.
Nearly everywhere monarchs raised themselves further above the level of the greatest nobles and buttressed their new pretensions to respect and authority with cannons and taxation.
I don't know how to put on any tough guy pretensions.
